Beverly High baseball coach Dave Wilbur retires

By Jason BrisboisCorrespondent

Monday

Aug 20, 2018 at 5:49 PMAug 20, 2018 at 5:49 PM

Coaching one team over the course of 17 years tends to yield it's fair share of highlights.

For Dave Wilbur, there are a number he could choose from. The Beverly High baseball coach could choose from a list that includes an MIAA Div. 2 North Championship earlier this summer, or four Northeastern Conference Championships, or the numerous Northeastern Conference Coach of the Year nods. There’s also the fact that Wilbur helped lead the Panthers to 16 tournament berths in a row during his time, missing the playoffs once during his career at Beverly.

The 16-year playoff streak with Wilbur as head coach is one that is destined to end during the spring of 2019: The long-time BHS coach announced last week that he is retiring from the position and will not return to coach the Panthers next year.

“I’ve been coaching baseball since 1975,” says Wilbur. “I coached at Georgetown High, Melrose High, Beverly High and Tufts University. Its been a big part of my life; I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve been doing it for a long time, and you know someday its going to come to an end.”

While admitting he had some idea that this announcement was coming in the near future, it wasn’t until recently that the coach made the decision after taking some time to assess things.

“When the season ends, I usually take a couple of weeks off and start looking ahead to next year and the year after that, start long-range planning,” says Wilbur. “And I knew I wasn’t going to be committed to three or four more years; I didn’t want to come back for just one year, that’s not how you build or sustain a program. So, I told my family that this would be my last season, and that I decided to retire.”

Prior to coming to Beverly, Wilbur spent nine years coaching the Melrose High baseball team, giving him day-to-day experience of competing in the fairly daunting Middlesex League. He states that the experience helped translate to the sustained success that he experienced in Beverly.

“I left Tufts to go to Melrose,” he explains. “The Melrose situation was similar to the Beverly situation because they are very similar communities, and we had some good teams down there. I have a lot of fond memories down there, it was a great experience. I’m still in contact with a lot of my former players from down there.”

With the school notified and the retirement now official, Wilbur can look back on a career that can be viewed as lengthy, successful and amazingly consistent.

“I’m proud of the way our kids competed, and the way the kids competed at a consistent level,” he explains. “We got to the point where our program was a consistent winner.”

He also points to the help of longtime assistant coaches such as Rich Walsh, Joel Belmonte and Terry Conant (who started with Wilbur in his first year in 2002), former coaches Mark Thomas and Paul Munzing and current coaches Andy Scott, Reini Perez, Frank Morrissey and Rick Fisher

“Over the years, I’ve worked with a group of talented and dedicated coaches,” says Wilbur. “Those guys have been supportive of everything, and the kids benefitted so much from their input.”

While Wilbur has worked with some talented coaches and achieved great success in almost two decades as the BHS baseball coach, he says what he will miss the most is working with his players.

“I want to thank our players, because the players make the program,” says Wilbur. “The kids who come through the program are terrific young men. The thing I’ll miss the most will be the day-to-day contact with the kids. I don’t know if there are many things I like better than baseball practice; I love to go out there and talk to the kids, go through the drills. I like working with the coaching staff and evaluating kids, working with them to put something together.”

As for the future, Wilbur leaves the BHS baseball program in good shape.

“The jayvee team was 16-4 last year, the freshman team was 13-6,” he explains. “We graduated 11 seniors, but we’ve got five seniors coming back, and there’s a good feeder program in the city with Little League and Babe Ruth. I think the program we’ve built will continue to be successful, and I will continue to be its number one fan.”

While his focus will change now that he is no longer coach of the baseball team, Wilbur will still be quite visible at BHS and in the community.

“I’m still going to be coaching football,” he says. “It’s my 24th year at Beverly High School and my 44th year coaching football. When the baseball season rolls around, I’m not so sure what I’ll do. I’ll spend some time with my family, probably go watch some of our kids play in college, maybe empty the dishwasher every once in a while.”